For Week Ending:
13 January 2024

The Cure - Disintegration (1989)

[Alternative Rock]

By 1989 The Cure had become a known name by music fans. They had a handful of well-known songs that had charted well over the past decade, but for the most part their albums were still very much for their fans alone. Like most bands that caught a whiff of that sweet smell of success, they chased the rainbow for a couple of long-players - and that is why Disintegration was such a shock upon release. With personnel changes (due to the usual rock n' roll tropes) band leader Robert Smith took a step (or three) backwards to more familiar territory, creating an goth-style album that would have sat easily in the band's earlier repertoire. Whether it was successful or not came down to how much of a fan you were. If you were into vintage Cure, it shone like a diamond. If you were looking for the more recent 'radio ready' version of the band, you would have spent a lot of time scratching your head. The album is draped in lush textures of majestic keyboards and reverb soaked guitar, giving it a distinct feel, somewhat akin to soundscapes rather than classic song structures - but it works beautifully, and the sound never gets stale. The lyrics on tracks like 'Pictures Of You' and 'Prayers For Rain' are wonderfully textured, and the bass driving on 'Fascination Street' and the title track is just sublime. This is an album that begs for repeat listens, but is also moody, and won't suit every time of the day. It perfectly set the band up to enter the next decade, when music like theirs would soon be dominating the charts.

Arist Information
The Cure are an English alternative rock band formed in 1978 in Crawley, West Sussex. Several early singles placed the band at the forefront of the emerging post-punk and new wave movements that had sprung up in the United Kingdom. Beginning with their second album, the band adopted a new, increasingly dark and tormented style, which, together with vocalist Robert Smith's stage look, had a strong influence on the emerging genre of gothic rock as well as the subculture that eventually formed around the genre. The have sold over 30 million albums worldwide, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2019.

Release Information
'Disintegration' is the eighth studio album by The Cure. The record marks a return to the introspective gothic rock style the band had established in the early 1980s. As he neared the age of 30, vocalist and guitarist Robert Smith had felt an increased pressure to follow up on the band's pop successes with a more enduring work. This, coupled with a distaste for the group's newfound popularity, caused Smith to lapse back into the use of hallucinogenic drugs, the effects of which had a strong influence on the production of the album. It became the band's highest charting album to that point, reaching number three in the United Kingdom and at number 12 in the United States.